There seems to be a prevalent myth that, when it comes to GMOs, Monsanto, and related topics, there is an “information gap,” that is, that these issues simply haven’t been studied enough, or that they haven’t been studied in any truly comprehensive or long-term manner. The Internet has become a sort of “Wild West” when it comes to information: Anyone can publish anything they like. Sensational headlines trend. Dense scientific papers don’t. Conflicts of interest can be hard to identify. Charlatans, snake oil peddlers, quacks, and people who don’t realize that anecdotes don’t qualify as evidence, have free reign to produce articles that prey upon some of your deepest fears and appeal to the less-than-logical elements of the human brain, leading you to make potentially fatal decisions.

When it comes to GMOs, misinformation runs deep. A quick Google search yields results that make claims implicating GMOs in everything from autism to cancer to the neocolonial exploitation of the global south by Shinra-esque biotechnology corporations. These articles appeal to your emotions and strike a chord with your innate biological desire for survival. We want what’s best for our health and the health of our loved ones. We want to be responsible citizens of Planet Earth and take care of the environment. We want to make the right choices. Planting a seed of doubt in someone’s mind is among the easiest things to do. Emotionally-driven decision making, however, can have very adverse consequences. That is why it is imperative that we make our decisions based on reliable sources and methodologically-sound, peer-reviewed data with results that can be replicated across space and time.

Let me be clear: There is no shortage of information on the safety and environmental sustainability of GMOs. (Don’t take my word for it – keep reading and you’ll see what I mean.) While some “anti-GMO activists” may continue to assert otherwise, the facts are not on their side. The reality of the situation is that extensive research has been done and countless major, international bodies of science and medicine have reviewed that data in coming to the consensus conclusion that GMOs are as safe as, or safer than, “conventional” and “organic” foods. In this catalog, I will be documenting both scientific research and articles from reliable sources that tackle some of the many myths surrounding GMOs, as well as Monsanto.

If you would like to recommend additions to this catalog, or if you have any questions regarding the information contained herein, you are more than welcome to contact me.

Original Post Date: January 2nd 2016Last Updated: February 19th 2016 (Edit notes will appear in the footer of this article.)

It would be a daunting endeavor to list 2,000+ studies on GMOs in this post. Therefore, what I have chosen to do is share the work of a team of Italian scientists who reviewed 1,783 studies about the safety and environmental impacts of GMO foods. You can see their work here: An overview of the last 10 years of genetically engineered crop safety research. If you’re interested in seeing the studies they reviewed, a 105 page .PDF document is available that catalogs all of them. You can find that document right here. The researchers who reviewed this overwhelming library of data concluded, “The scientific research conducted so far has not detected any significant hazards directly connected with the use of genetically engineered crops.”

As Dr. Novella summarizes, “We now have a large set of data, both experimental and observational, showing that genetically modified feed is safe and nutritionally equivalent to non-GMO feed. There does not appear to be any health risk to the animals, and it is even less likely that there could be any health effect on humans who eat those animals. In order to maintain the position that GMOs are not adequately tested, or that they are harmful or risky, you have to either highly selectively cherry pick a few outliers of low scientific quality, or you have to simply deny the science.” Here is a comprehensive list of animal feeding studies.

I also recommend “A decade of EU-funded GMO research” (published by the European Commission), which evaluates both food safety and environmental impacts. Another database of relevant studies is maintained here.

If you browse some of the “alternative” health blogs that are infamous for their anti-GMO rhetoric, you may see references to outliers (in other words, a small handful of poorly-conducted studies whose results contradict all of the other data on the subject), discredited or retracted articles, logical fallacies, conspiratorial ideation, and other such “arguments.” One of the best articles that breaks down these responses is “The Bad Science Checklist of GMO Opponents.” It is not uncommon to see individuals “cherry picking” extraneous material and attempting to construct a field of validity via logical fallacies. Finding a single study that says “GMOs are dangerous” doesn’t discredit the overwhelming consensus that GMOs are safe. It’s far more likely that the outlying study suffered from poor methodology, fell through cracks in the peer review process, etc.

Confirmation bias “is a cognitive bias that causes us to search out evidence that supports our point of view, while ignoring anything that doesn’t. It is a basic human behavior.” If we are truly interested in the truth, we must not allow ourselves to fall victim to it.

Anti-GMO “activists” are pushing for mandatory GMO-labeling requirements. Even some individuals who don’t take issue with GMOs are asking, “Well, what’s the harm? Why not just label them?” Slapping a label on foods containing GMOs may sound like an innocuous proposition – but that couldn’t be further from the truth — for several reasons.

There exists in this country a vast, well-established, highly professional, protest industry fueled by special interest groups seeking to line their own pockets while harming the public interest. How vast? A review of tax returns of the “non-profit” activist organizations opposing agricultural biotechnology and other modern production methods reveals more than $2.5 billion is being spent annually in the United States by these professional advocacy groups to shape our beliefs and influence our purchasing habits. Like Prop. 37 in California, the majority of this money comes not from “grassroots” donations, but from big-money special interests that benefit from these foods scares.

The leading corporate contributors and the biggest donors behind the Prop. 37 campaign in California are organic food, natural product and alternative (read: quack) health product companies. These “fear profiteers” prosper from scare campaigns about food and how it’s produced. Their support enables activists to foment bogus health and safety fears about the agricultural products and production techniques used to grow conventionally produced (i.e., non-organic) foods, thereby helping to drive customers to higher-priced organic offerings. Boosting costs through labeling initiatives and other tactics allows the less efficient organic alternatives to become more cost-competitive. Misled, bamboozled consumers are the losers.

I want to place special emphasis on this one. I have seen this claim used in countless debates: “The World Health Organization lists glyphosate as carcinogenic to humans.” Not exactly. This is another example of scientific information being taken out-of-context and transformed into a sensational headline. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (an arm of the World Health Organization) evaluates hazards — not risks — (there’s a huge difference) of all sorts of common products and activities. IARC listed glyphosate as a “Class 2A Hazard” indicating that it is “probably carcinogenic” to humans. I understand how that can be disconcerting.

Here is an infographic with examples of what falls in IARC’s different categories:

Click on the image for a larger version.

As Henry Miller writes, “As with common chemicals like sugar, salt and water, and foods like nutmeg and licorice, glyphosate at very high doses is capable of causing harm to humans. That’s what the IARC “2A” designation—“probably carcinogenic to humans”–essentially means. But one of the seminal tenets of toxicology is that “the dose makes the poison,” and the reality is that glyphosate is not a human health risk even at levels of exposure that are more than 100 times higher than the human exposures that occur under conditions consistent with the product’s labeling.”

The most important thing to remember is that the dose makes the poison. Paracelsus, a 16th century Swiss German physician, said, “All things are poisons, for there is nothing without poisonous qualities. It is only the dose which makes a thing poison” – and he was right. That’s why people who spray herbicides and pesticides onto plants wear protective equipment but those same chemicals do not affect consumers who eat the food that was once sprayed. You can read more about the IARC’s classification of glyphosate – and why it can be misleading when taken out of context – here.

Finally, let’s take a look at a published review of epidemiological studies of glyphosate and cancer (the pinnacle of good science). As you might now expect, “Seven cohort studies and fourteen case-control studies examined the association between glyphosate and one or more cancer outcomes. Our review found no consistent pattern of positive associations indicating a causal relationship between total cancer (in adults or children) or any site-specific cancer and exposure to glyphosate.”

For some reason, many anti-GMO arguments center on the conduct of Monsanto and there is this misconception that GMOs = Monsanto and Monsanto = GMOs. The information I’ve shared above cannot be refuted by references to corporate practices of Monsanto that you may find to be unsavory. However, I have decided that I will dedicate space in this catalog to debunking many of the myths surrounding Monsanto to help shut down bogus arguments put forth by those who make the fallacious equivalence I mentioned earlier.

“Since 1997, we have only filed suit against farmers 147 times in the United States. This may sound like a lot, but when you consider that we sell seed to more than 325,000 American farmers a year, it’s really a small number. Of these, we’ve proceeded through trial with only eleven farmers. All eleven cases were found in Monsanto’s favor.” Source: Saved Seed and Farmer Lawsuits

There are also the obvious dangers of rejecting evidence, rejecting logic and rational thinking, abstaining from critical thought, and buying into baseless claims despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. These mindsets lead to everything from the rejection of beneficial technologies to death from preventable causes.

Is there a connection between Monsanto and the Zika virus outbreak? No. In February 2016, rumors began circulating that microcephaly is being caused by the use of pyriproxyfen, a larvicide — and numerous less-than-reputable sources quickly indicted Monsanto. What these sources failed to realize, however, is that Monsanto does not produce larvicides. Pyriproxyfen is produced by Tokyo-based Sumitomo Chemical (which is not owned by Monsanto Company).

As for the rumor itself – that is, that microcephaly is being caused by pyriproxyfen, rather than the Zika virus (or some other cause), is wholly unsubstantiated. Scientists, doctors, and public health professionals are working diligently to reach evidence-based conclusions. There is nothing to be gained from creating and circulating rumors that are predicated upon a lack of evidence (including no laboratory tests or epidemiological studies), fear mongering around an information gap, and the overall misrepresentation of a situation by a small group of heavily biased individuals. This is a serious situation and we owe it to affected and at-risk individuals to disseminate information responsibly.

I would like to add a comment and a reference to the section “Do genetically engineered crops really increase pesticide use?”. I hope that it could be of interest to your readers.
When one considers the impact of GMOs on pesticide use, one must differentiate between insect-resistant crops and herbicide-tolerant (HT) crops. Indeed Bt crops usually can reduce insecticide use provided that insects other than the targeted ones don’t attack the Bt crops after a certain time period. However, for GM herbicide-tolerant crops, where generally glyphosate has replaced the previously used weedkillers, when one looks at the impact of GM herbicide-tolerant crops on herbicide use, one must do it NOT for one or two years, but for a much LONGER PERIOD of time. Indeed, during their very first years of adoption, HT crops often led to some decrease in herbicide use. However, the repetition of glyphosate-tolerant crops and of glyphosate only applications in the same fields without sufficient alternation and herbicide diversity has contributed to the appearance of glyphosate-resistant weeds. These weeds have resulted in a rise in the use of glyphosate and other herbicides.
A 2016 article exploring this situation and the impacts of herbicide-resistant weeds has just been published in Environmental Management, a scientific peer-reviewed journal. The paper looks into GM herbicide-tolerant crops and their effects on herbicide use, particularly glyphosate. It then analyzes the spread of glyphosate-resistant weeds worldwide and their consequences, particularly for HT soybean in the USA. This article is the result of a research work carried out by a scientist working in public research with no conflict of interest.
Reference. Bonny S. 2016. Genetically Modified Herbicide-Tolerant Crops, Weeds, and Herbicides: Overview and impact. Environmental Management 57(1), p. 31-48. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00267-015-0589-7http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00267-015-0589-7